Il Giorno Dopo (The Day After)
2023 · 18m · Italy
Directed by Enea Colombi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, mythic
A son dedicates his entire life to hunting an elusive river creature that once slipped through his father's grasp, only to discover the unexpected consequences of finally achieving a lifelong obsession.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Generational obsession with a river creature as ecological parable in the Piacenza fog — Big Fish comparisons are doing a lot of work, and 'mythic father-son quest about vanishing landscapes' is a well-trodden festival lane. Atmosphere over surprise.
Fog-shrouded Piacenza countryside as the site of an inherited mythic quest reads like Ermanno Olmi crossed with Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales — the vanishing-landscape framing is what lifts it from fable to elegy. A confident first impression.
Eighteen minutes in the fog of the Piacenza countryside chasing a river creature inherited from a father's obsession — the regional specificity (the director's actual home landscape) is what separates this from generic Big Fish riffs. Mythic-melancholic in a register that needs real place.
Reviews
Visually stunning and mythic in tone, The Day After explores themes of identity and conquest, while revealing the often-overlooked consequences of finally achieving a lifelong goal.
Colombi describes the creation of his film as 'an act toward the territory itself,' inspired by environmental challenges facing his birthplace — where the fogs are becoming rare, the summers increasingly dry, and the river retreats more each year.
Festivals
- Rome Independent Film Festival 2023
- Imagine Fantastic Film Festival 2024